Improvement in gathered fabrics



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UNITED STATES PATENT CEEICE.

HENRY s. BROWN, OE NEWYORK, N. Y., AssiGNOR To ALEREE ARNOLD,

OE NORTH ENGLEWOOD, NEW JERSEY.

IMPROVEMENT iN GATH'ERED FABRICS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 43,943, dated August 23, 1864.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HENRY S. BROWN, of the city and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Gathered Fabrics, such as ruffies and other gathered work, of which the following is a specification.

In my improvement the gathers differ from all others, inasmuch as they are held in place by a thread which passes through the cloth necessarily and invariably between the gathers, and the gathers resemble curved corrugatioiis rather than more sharply-detinedfolds or plaits. lhe tendency to curved corrugations and the fixed uniformity with which the thread passes through the cloth between the corrugations are incidental to and resultfrom the novel manner in which my improved fabric is made. i

As I desire to claim no more than the novelty of my invention entitles me to, I will iirst describe the kinds of gathered or plaited fablics lieretol'ore known and the modes of making them, and then explain my improved gathered fabric, with the novel method of producing it, to which novel method it owes its peculiar form and superiority.

There are twomodesof making gathers or plaits by hand-first, by the use of the gathering-thread,as showninFigure4oftheaccompanying drawings, which constitute a part of this speeitication, where the straight horizontal thread e passes through the vertical plaits b. The second mode is to form one or more gathers or plaits without the use of the gath- 'e1ing-thread, and then sew them in place by any of the well-known hand-stitches, as shown in Fig. 5 of the accompanying drawings,wherc the plaits b lie nearly in a horizontal line and the thread a passes through them vertically, and the number of perfor-ations made by the needle bears no fixed and uniform relation to the number of plaits or gathers, because the thread sometimes passes directly through a plait and at other times between two plaits.

Gathers or plaits formed by the feeding device of a sewing-machine, as described in the specification 'of Letters Patent dated September 25, 1860, No. 30,111, must necessarily be laid more or less fiat and be sharply defined-fthat is to say, if a single piece of cloth be placed between the presser-foot and feeding device of a sewing-machine, and a portion of said feeding device takes hold of and movesa portion of the cloth up to the needle, while both the portion'of cloth which is heilig moved and the portion of cloth beyond the needle which is at rest are tightlyclamped between two pieces of rigid metal, then the fold so formed mustnecessarily be sharply defined, and

thus partake of the character of plaited fabric, rather than gathered fabric with curved corrugations.7 Again, it is obvious that no feeding mechanism can always lay minute plaits in the exact position necessary to insure the needle to perforate the cloth invariably between two gathers; butin practice the needle will often perforate the plaits themselves, and thus tend to chop up the cloth, causing more o r less injury to the fabric.

In my improvement in gathered fabrics, such as ruffies and other gathered' Work,77 the gethers are made by the needle and thread of a sewing-machine. The cloth is fed along, as inordinary sewing,ina plain ungathered state a distance equal to the throw of the feeder, which is equalto the length of a stitch before the gather is made. Then the gather is made by the needle and thread while in the act of drawing up the loop and completing the stitch. Hence each gather must necessarily and invariably be Iliade from that portion of the cloth which is comprised between two perforations of the needle, and the tendency'of each gather is to adapt its shape to the curve of the thread when drawn up.

To enable others skilled in the art to make this my improved manufacture, reference is made to the specification attached to Letters Patent for improvement-in the gathering mechanism for sewing-machines, No. 42,043, gratited to Alfred Arnold, my assignee, March 22, 1864, in the specification and drawings annexed to which the mechanical devices whereby I make said improved manufacture arefully v described.

'As a further description of my improved manufacture, i will here refer to the accompanying drawings in illustration thereof, and which drawings constitute a part of this pres ent specification.

Fig. l is a Aperspective view of apiece of cloth gathered, wherein the thread invariably passes between the gathers, and wherein the cloth is represented by the darker colors and the thread by red lines. Fig. 2 is a sectional View of Fig. 1, the darker lines representing the gathers and the red lines the thread. Fig. 3 represents the back or other side of Fig. 1. In all these figures the stitches represented are the chainstitch,7 so-called; but any other ot' the known machine-stitches maybe used for doing the work without materially changing the character of my manufacture.

' An obvious superiority in my improved manufacture over all other gathered fabrics consists in the uniformity of its gathers, and in dispensing with the necessity ofeither scratching between each fold with a sharp-pointed instrument, as is done in some ofthe handmade fabrics, or of crimping the cloth in sharply-defined folds or plaits, as is done by the devices for gathering or plaiting, with the feeding mechanism ot' a sewing-machine, both of these methods tending to injure the fabric and lessen its durability.

That there may be no misapprehension as to the exact nature and extent of my invention, I will disclaim as follows First. I do-not claim broadly as a new manufacture a ruffle or other gathered fabric, for this is not new. y

Second. I do not claim as a new manufacture a ruflie or other gathered fabric wherein the gathers are formed on a straight thread, and thus allowed to slip on said thread like beads loosely strung, for this is not new.A

Third. I do not claim broadly as a new manufacture a ruflie or other gathered fabrcwherein the gathers are each held in place by a firm stitch, for I am aware that long before sewingmachines were known it was not infrequent in making some kinds ot' ruffles and other gathered fabrics to form gathers'by hand without the use of a gathering-thread, and fasten each gather firmly in place by a tight stitch. Therefore this is not new.'v

Fourth. I do not claim as a new manufacture a ruffle or other gathered fabric wherein the gathers are held in place by a machinestitch77 in contradistinction to a hand-stitch,77 for I am aware that this would be merely the application of a well-known stitch to a new use, or what is technically termed a double use, and hence not patentable.

Fifth. I do not claim as a new manufacture an article wherein the fabric to be plaited or ruffled is operated upon so as to be ruffled by the feeding device and fastened by the stitching apparatus of a sewing-machine at one and the same operation, for this method, as quoted, is claimed in Letters Patent dated September 25, 1860, No. 30,111; and ifit were not therein claimed this method would not,` as I have already shown, produce the manufacture described by me.

What I do claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent as a new manu facture, is-

A gathered fabric wherein each gather'is held' firmly in place by a thread which necessarily and invariably passes through the cloth between the gathers, and wherein the gathers resemble curved corrugations rather than more sharply-dctined folds or plaits, substantially as herein described.

HENRY S. BROWN.-

Witnesses: I

HENRY B. STANTON, SEDMON T. KEEsE. 

